Video: Working with markers

Often it's nice to be able to leave yourself or other members of the editing team a note about a particular shot or communicate that something needs to be done. In the digital world of video editing, it's not very practical to leave actual notes, because you're often referring to a very specific shot or even a specific frame. Instead you need to be able to zero in and leave these notes right within the editing project. Fortunately, that's where markers come in, the digital Post-It notes of the editing world. Let's take a look.

Learn how to build and refine your story with the redesigned editing toolset in Final Cut Pro X. In this course, author Ashley Kennedy focuses on getting you comfortable with each aspect of the editing process in Final Cut—from preparation and organization, to editing and refining, to audio and effects, to media management and exporting. Each stage of the postproduction workflow is explained thoroughly and concisely, and uses real-world examples from both narrative and documentary workflows.

Working with markers

Often it's nice to be able to leave yourself or other members of the editing team a noteabout a particular shot or communicate that something needs to be done.In the digital world of video editing, it's not very practical to leave actual notes,because you're often referring to a very specific shot or even a specific frame.Instead you need to be able to zero in and leave these notes right within the editing project.Fortunately, that's where markers come in, the digital Post-It notes of the editing world. Let's take a look.

I'm going to go into 7.4, and again, we're in Farm to Table, and this is Scene 1,and I have a few comments that I'd like to leave for myself and for my producer.For example, let's start simple.This shot here is too dark and needs to be color corrected.I just want to leave a marker for myself to remind myself to color correct it beforeI screen it for the client.So to do this, I'm just going to park the playhead right on the shot and press M.This adds a marker. You can see the blue marker right there.

Now to actually leave a note, I have to press M again and my Marker dialog box opens.I'm just going to type color correct, and I could press Done, but I want to take a look up here.Now if I click the middle button, this changes the Marker from just a general informationalmarker to a to-do item which turns this into a task that I can check off whether I have completed it or not.As an aside, this third box lets you add chapter information for when you export your project,but we'll take a look at that a little bit later.

So since this color correct is an actual task, I'm going to click on the middle button, and then I'll press Done.Now I have got another question down the line.I know that we have secured Talent Release Forms for most of the interviewees, but I'mactually not sure about this farm worker, and we need to get everybody.All right, so I'm going to go ahead and just park here, and instead of pressing M twiceyou can also just press Option+M, and Marker dialog box opens right up.

And I'm just going to type, Did we clear this talent release?And then I'll press done. And one more. Over BD's interview here,he's talking about what he does before the sun rises.So I know that we shot footage of the sun rising over his house, and I want to make sure that we include it.So I'm just going to press Option+M and type Insert sunrise shot, and this is a to-do item and done.

Now, notice that when I click on my markers, I don't actually see anything.To see the note that I left, I just double-click, and it opens up right here.Also if I want to move from marker or marker, I can press Ctrl+Semicolon and Ctrl+Apostrophe.So Ctrl+Apostrophe to move to the right, Ctrl+Semicolon to move to the left.Well, this is okay, but I'd really like to do is be able to see the information containedwithin these markers in a list.Fortunately, that's where the Timeline Index comes in.

I'm just going to click on the Timeline Index here, and we looked at this previouslywhen we were examining the various clips in a sequence.But we can also use it to look at marker information.I just need to make sure that tags is selected, and then if I click on the Marker iconat the bottom it gives me a list of my markers.If I come over here and click on this one, it gives me a list of all of my to-do items,and then over here it gives me a list of my completed tasks.

We don't have any completed tasks yet, so let me show you how to do that.So I have gone through, and let's say--I haven't done it yet, because we haven't learned aboutcolor correction--but let's say that I color corrected this shot.So I can double-click on this and then say Completed, and notice that it moved from theto-do list to the Completed list.Another way to check off to-do items is right from within this listI can just check it right here and again it disappears from here and goes to Completed.

Just a few more logistics on markers before we wrap up. If I want to move a marker, I actuallyhave to right-click on it and choose Cut, and then we need to color correct this shotas well, and then I'll paste Command+V.So there is no actual moving of markers, it's just cutting and pasting, and also you can copy and paste.If I want to delete a marker, same thing, I just right-click and say Delete.

So, as you can see, markers are a great way to digitally communicate specific informationin the digital world of Final Cut Pro.

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